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Some great improvements, but big thumbs down that the time has been reduced from the originally promised 3hrs to 90 mins……….

…….we can but wait and see if things run smoother!

Shame that the time has been reduced from 3 hours to 90mins, you make it sound like it’s an even better deal when it’s not.

@scotmum and ben: we figured that 90 minutes of faster access is going to be significantly more useful than 3 hours of everyone trying to use the site at once and slowing things down to a crawl. Wouldn’t you agree? Fingers crossed that things go smoothly (so far, so good, but early days)

Do not agree with iantester.. is still half the time.. having told friends it is 3 hrs now have to tell them it is now only 90miutes.. they will perceive you have reduced the offer and perhaps will now not want to sign up after the world cup as you ” move the goalposts!”

Bummer that you halved the time – especially as I didn’t know until the access cut off! When you had the 3 hour offer I got 12 records, today I got 7.

It’s a pity you didn’t keep the three hours access over the 24 hours you’ve now made the offer good for. I feel like a bit of a dill for telling people about the three hours.

I like the suggestions on this blog for monthly access – that would be very useful to me.

useless, couldn’t get anything , asked for credits every time

Oh what NOT fun. I thought you said it had been improved. Such a big disappointment. AGAIN.

just spent a totally wasted hour and a half on this site which I will never visit again. Why can I not get any records when I have found them? It asks for payment every time – if I’d wanted to pay I would have done that in the first place.

A real foot in face for findmypast as my ancestry subscription runs out next month and I was contemplating a move – it certainly won’t happen now it has made me more cross than you can imagine

Woe are folks – the site became ‘undone’ ……. again!!!

Didn’t know 1. time has been reduced and 2. access extended to all day instead of during the game as originally advertised.

Now at 8pm can’t even get thro’

I have a subscription to FMP, and I find it an excellent site.

All the folks taking advantage of the free access during England’s world cup matches should be grateful to FMP, instead of complaining. Many people have been successful in accessing free 1911 census records (info gleaned from genealogy forums).

I, as a paid up member cannot gain access to the site as so many ‘free access users’ are online, this isn’t upsetting me as I’m pleased that FMP are making the kind gesture to non members, and feel non members, or some of them, are being extremely discourteous and ungrateful.

….ps…….

you’re blog ‘time record’ is about an hour slow

@ian tester
You say “we figured that 90 minutes of faster access is going to be significantly more useful than 3 hours of everyone trying to use the site at once and slowing things down to a crawl.”

But you have admitted that you didn’t expect it to slow down to a crawl the first time. Not wanting to be too critical as it is a free offer after all, but it’s a pity to spoil the goodwill originally created and frustrate people by reducing the promised time.

You might like to know that
http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/findmypast.com

is reporting that your site is down. Clearly not managing to access it.

Very disappointed that your offer is now for only 50% of the time originally promised. And while access is better, it is still not good.

No good, ages to get in, given up. Well what do you expect when a site like this is free. I could do a lot of research in 90 or 180 mins. Shame we can’t get something like a timed access to the site at other times. I don’t know what other people think but a paid access for say 24 hours wouldn’t be a bad idea, or one month as I have seen mentioned.

Mark

I think the free offer is great. I would love to see if there is good information available that makes a subscription worthwhile. However, the site worked about the same today as during the last game so I was disappointed when I suddenly was asked to pay after 90 minutes when I thought I had 180. 90 minutes of faster access would have been better than the slow crawl, but it wasn’t faster. At least today, I figured out how to do an advanced search on a particular census year.

The second offer email COULD have mentioned that the first offer was no longer valid! It actually stated “Further entertainment”, not a replacement plan. Many of us heard of the trouble that some had accessing the site during the last game because of high traffic, so it would make sense that the site be offered during other hours, but to shorten the time AND not mention that the first offer is no longer valid simply isn’t fair. The original email stated EVERYTIME England play – I sat down expecting a full 3 hours of time and of course after 90 minutes I was no longer able to access the data. There was no mention of this in the second email… Not a happy potential customer right now!

I hadn’t realised time had been reduced to 90 minutes and have spent a frustrating 1/2 hour trying to access records only to keep getting subscription page. Reading other comments I now realise that free time has been reduced. Great – managed to find one record in total!!! System very slow and kept timing out so that I ended up being more frustrated than my husband watching football!

Is the offer now 90 minutes at anytime during an England football match day?

Like many who wrote above, when I finally was able to access the site, seemingly within the June 18-19 free period, I was not able to access the records images but instead was asked for money.

I had a stress free 90 minutes seaching at about 9.30 am this morning..maybe everyone was trying to get on later at the same time? I had a great time, thanks..will be ready early next week for another go..

What a complete waste of time, very dissapointed after telling relatives I would be able to find more information for them. After several attempts to access the site as a world cup widow I was asked to pay for any information I found on the fee search.

I would never contemplate paying any subscriptions to this site or buying credits as I have in the past.

Wanted to take advantage of free 90 minutes to decide whether to subscribe in future. Certainly made my mind up. Couldn’t get beyond ‘sign in’ page without being asked for payment. If they can’t get that right they’re not getting a subscription and I’ll look at alternative sites.

Come on guys – think about it, there’s only a handful of you complaining which suggests many searchers are happy. I belong to a family history forum and members there all have positive remarks, most have had successful searches and are grateful to FMP for giving them the opportunity.

Next time England are playing try logging on at a different time of day, say ………morning if possible, that seems to have been when most have been successful.

And do remember, FMP’s gesture to you has been at the expense of paid up members, who too, have had difficulty logging on during world cup matches. Without us with full membership, it wouldn’t be possible for FMP to extend their gesture to you, but I haven’t read on any forum any paid member complaining.

Accept, that any website which has desirable records and offers free access is going to be inundated. You too have a responsibility to be sensible and try and use the site when there will be the least traffic.

Would have been lovely if it worked. Like many others I had not realised that the offer had changed, signed in at the beginning time of the game and the system overloaded, could not even search. Found out the offer had changed so went to site six hours later and I can now search but it always asks for money, apparently my 90 minutes started from the time I logged on when the system was overloaded. A bit of a disappointment, I have been with FMP in the past and found them really good.

I logged in at 6.30 am time sat 19th should still have been able to access up till 9am Uk time but was asked for payment each time i tried a name

Waste of time.
Slow.
Many BMD records already free on web.
Constant request for money during free period.
Took up to 10 min. just for search.
Error messages.
Tried numererous times of day.
Would never pay.
I am very experienced using genealogical websites, this has been the worst!!

Well not very successful, you haven’t impressed non subscribers and those who have subscribed over several years haven’t been able to access the site either! I for one am not impressed with that. Seems to me that those who had already paid should have been given a protected service but then obviously you didn’t bother about that either. Shot yourselves in the foot I think.

Susan, I would like to use the site in the morning but like most work gets in the way and have to wait until the evening, when no doubt most of us are trying to get on.

Mark

I would like to thank ‘Find My Past’ for their generous offer. I had no trouble downloading at lease a dozen census’s for free at about 2pm New Zealand time.

Jackie

I had a very successful 90 minutes on Friday lunchtime – absolutely brilliant. More people should read this blog because all the information about the changes were given here.

I got logged onto the site with no problem. I tried searches of death records but when I would try to get quarterly dates “No Info” would be displayed. I don’t know if this is because I’m in the USA/California and maybe need another browser. Any help would be appreciated…thanking you in advance!!

The tease by Find My Past is appreciated but better to find out now that I can’t obtain records before paying for subscription.

@Lorraine: despite the many comments on this blog suggesting to the contrary, you will not be charged during the free period. When you go to view the records, the site will continue to show you the cost in credits of viewing a record, but viewing it is free. You can check this by checking the number of credits remaining via the “My Account” link if you have any credits on your account when you start.

Some users have also reported being shown the “Payment options” page during a free period when trying to view records – this only happens if somebody using the computer has already taken a free period that day – it is designed to stop people using the site for more than the 90 minutes allocated to each person and slowing down the experience for others. This can be triggered by people signing in early in the day and using up their 90 minutes then (the clock starts ticking when you sign in for the first time).

On your problem with death records – can you tell me which set you were searching and what you searched for and we will look into it – the browser you are using shouldn’t make any difference to the search results, neither will being in California, so rest assured it’s highly unlikely to be a problem your end!

Hi

Is the 90 minutes scheme runing again for England match tomorrow?
If so what are the start and finish times?

@Lorraine – that sounds like you’re getting to the results page fine, but then the Flash viewer is being blocked. That’s either because your machine doesn’t have flash installed (reasonably unlikely as most do) or (more likely) that as you say, you local security settings are blocking it.

@Bob – see our more recent posts – it’s running from 9am today until 9am tomorrow morning.

Signed in but couldn’t view any content other than what I’d signed up for which was 1911 census only.

Thanks Find My Past for the free offer. I had a great time searching from my home computer. I usually go into my local library to access the site but found it so easy with all my info at hand. Had no problems accessing anything.

I didn’t have any problems last Wednesday 3rd England match though I did login around 9:15pm. A great offer to use the 1911 census for free and I got lots of useful information. Thanks for letting me know!!!

What a disappointment – have subscribed and expected good service. However, for the third day running I am receiving no access because of essential maintenance .

Prior to that, I put the same search request into FMP, Ancestry and Genes Reunited . According to the results I had no such relative according to FMP, some information from Ancestry and all I needed to progress from Genes Reunited.

I emailed FMP asking what I was doing wrong, and am still waiting for reply 4 days later. All that essential maintenance problems??? I asked a similar question of Ancestry and received a reply in three hours.

Our second World Cup widows offer: free access at a time that suits you | findmypast.co.uk blog pig http://www.japan-guide.com/